July Gambito Opens

Gambito #527  7/30/11

Great turnout once again, 35 players. This time we went with the rarely used 3 section format. It is hard to do, because sometimes you might need 3 house players, but this time it worked well with no house players needed, except for the last round when 1 player withdrew. Bruce Baker withdrew after a first round loss (his nemesis), so that evened out the Open Section. Here were the pawn pushers in pre-event rating order:

Open Section (13 players): 5 Masters: Cyrus Lakdawala, Bruce Baker, Ali Morshedi, Kyron Griffith and Peter Graves; 8 Experts: Nicolas Zhao, Peter Hodges, Leonard Sussman, Alan Sebeckis, Daniel Grazian, Ben Barquin, Jamieson Pryor and Buddy Morris.

Reserve Section (14 players): 7 Class A: Chris Wonnell, Dennis Keetman, Elkaei Rivera, Chuck Ensey, Maaike Keetman, Pejman Sagart and Aaron Householder; 7 Class B: Jason Arbeiter, Scott Householder, Jerry Qu, Tom Kuhn, Anthony Harbone, Todd Arone and Jay Choi.

Booster Section (8 players): 2 Class C: Karl Lindberg and Fred Cleveland;  6 Class D/E: Keric Rivas, Jesse Wang, Wili Rivera, Alex Householder, Matthew Wang and Matthew Peavy.   

Here were the Prize winners: Great day for Peter Hodges, who upset Bruce Baker and Kyron Griffith. He lost only to Cyrus, and also beat Buddy Morris, who also had a fabulous day, with a draw against Peter Graves, and wins over Ali Morshedi and Alan Sebeckis. The Keetmans, a brother and sister team visiting from the Netherlands, dominated the Reserve Section. Karl Lindberg and Keric Rivas also had good days in the Booster Section.     

Open Section:

First Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (3 1/2), $125  Second Place: Peter Hodges (3), $75

BU2400: Peter Graves (2 1/2), $75   BU2200: Buddy Morris (2 1/2), $75

2nd BU2400/2ndU2200: Kyron Griffith (2), Leonard Sussman (2), Jamieson Pryor (2) and Ben Barquin (2), $10 each

Reserve Section:

BU2000: Dennis Keetman (3 1/2) and Maaike Keetman (3 1/2), $47 each

BU1800: Jason Arbeiter (2 1/2) and Jerry Qu (2 1/2), $47

Booster Section: 

BU1600: Karl Lindberg (3) and Keric Rivas (3), $35 each

BU1400: Jesse Wang (2 1/2) and Matthew Wang (2 1/2), $10 each

Total Prizes: $670 

Remember next week NO GAMBITO OPEN, due to the San Diego County Championships, sign up now by emailing Chuck Ensey at chucnglo@aol.com  The County Champs will be in the exact same 3 section format: Open, Reserve and Booster, but with longer time controls and much bigger prizes. 

       

Gambito #526 Saturday 7/23/11

After a rare break for the Gay Pride parade (and the Super Double Gambito on 7/9-7/10), we are back at our regular schedule again this weekend. Great turnout was expected so we went with a Full McMahon (5  bye points).

Here were the players in pre-event rating order (35 players total) :

6 Masters (5 bye points): Cyrus Lakdawala, Jeff Arnold, Ken Arnold, Bruce Baker, Ali Morshedi and Kyron Griffith    

5 Experts (4 points): Peter Hodges, Leonard Sussman, Rick Aeria, Ben Barquin and Jamieson Pryor   

8 Class A (3 points): Buddy Morris, Dennis Keetman, Chris Wonnell, Thomas Fries, Chuck Ensey, Jason Ma, Pejman Sagart and Kenneth Xu

7 Class B (2 points): Alexander Blank, Jerry Qu, Tom Kuhn, Eliza Eggert, Sam Barboo, William Delaney and Anthony Harbone

4 Class C (1 point): Jay Choi, David Narevsky, Andrew Negus and Claire Negus

5 Class D (0 points): Fred Cleveland, Jesse Wang, Mark Negus, Matthew Wang and Steve Sharber (unr)  

Great performance from Andrew Negus, who won all 4 games and despite starting a point behind all Class B players, he managed to win that prize! His rating will be jumping over a hundred points so he will be getting close to earning that Class B ranking. He won against David Narevsky, Fred Cleveland, Alexander Blank and Pejman Sagart, nice going kiddo!

It's also interesting to note the the lowest rated Class A player won the A prize ahead of the other 7, including me. That would be Kenneth Xu, a young rising star. His rating jumped 42+ points (the event is not officially rated yet, but should be soon) and he beat up on me in Rd 1, Jason Ma in Rd 2, Newcomer Dennis Keetman from the Netherlands (Welcome!) and then drew with Peter Hodges in the last round. Great performance Ken!!   

Of course we can't forget about Jeff Arnold, who defeated 3 masters (Morshedi, Griffith and Ken Arnold) before drawing with Cyrus. Cy also drew with Bruce Baker and Ken Arnold. Cy is in a mini-slump but vows to bounce back. He always does!

And here were the Prize Winners:

First Place: Jeff Arnold (8 1/2), $125

2nd Place: Cyrus Lakdawala (7 1/2), $75    BU2400: Bruce Baker (7 1/2), $75

2nd U2400: Kyron Griffith (7), $20

BU2200/2nd U2200: Ben Barquin (6 1/2), Peter Hodges (6 1/2) and Leonard Sussman (6 1/2), $32 each

BU2000: Kenneth Xu (6 1/2), $75     2nd U2000: Buddy Morris (5 1/2), $20

BU1800: Andrew Negus (5), $75      2nd U1800: Jerry Qu (4 1/2), $20

BU1600/2nd U1600: Fred Cleveland (3) and Jay Choi (3), $30 each

BU1400: Matthew Wang (2 1/2), $20

Total Prizes: $660      

July Super Gambito Open (#524)  Saturday 7/02/11 

4 Rounds of G/45, or G/40 with 5 second delay. Two sections, 33 players today, nice showing. Here are the players in pre-event rating order: (this event is now rated)

4 Masters: Cyrus Lakdawala, Bruce Baker, Kyron Griffith and Martin Nilsson

5 Experts: Nikolay Arutyunov, Leonard Sussman, Jim Humphrey, Enrico Balmacedo and Jamieson Pryor

11 Class A: Madhavan Vajapeyam, Bud Morris, Fidel Gonzalez, Tom Fries, Jason Ma, Elkaei Rivera, Chuck Ensey, Aaron Householder, Charlie Berkman, Murali Vajapeyam and Kenneth Xu.

4 Class B: Scott Householder, Jerry Qu, Jay Choi and Anthony Harbone   

2 Class C: Aaron Moman and Libano Rodriguez  

7 Class D and below: Fred Cleveland, Patrick Edwards, Thomas Diem, Zechariah Zhu, Daniel Zhu, Alex Householder and Stephen Zhu.  

Welcome to new player NM Martin Nilsson, who beat Cyrus, but then drew with Enrico Balmaceda and Bruce Baker (a mild case of the curse of Cyrus, a well documented malady where players who beat Cy usually flame out for the rest of the tournament). Also new today were Murali Vajapeyam, visiting from San Francisco, he is the brother of Madhavan...Also we had a new player in the Reserve Section, Aaron Moman, freshly arrived from Indiana. We had an odd number in the Reserves today, so Phil Skiba and and Roger Pedersen filled in as house players.     

And the winners were:

Open Section

First Place: Bruce Baker (3 1/2), $125

Second Place/BU2400/2nd U2400: Kyron Griffith (3), Cyrus Lakdawala (3) and Martin Nilsson (3), $58 each

BU2200: Enrico Balmacedo (2 1/2) and Nikolay Arutyunov (2 1/2), $50 each

BU2000: Buddy Morris (2 1/2) and Madhavan Vajapeyam (2 1/2), $50 each

3rd U2000: Fidel Gonzalez (2), Murali Vajapeyam (2) and Kenneth Xu (3), $50 each

Best Game goes to Martin Nilsson, $15, for win over Cyrus 

Reserve Section (U1800)

First Place: Jerry Qu, (3 1/2), $75

Second Place: Scott Householder (3), $25

BU1600: Zechariah Zhu (3), $75

2nd U1600: Libano Rodriguez (2 1/2), $25

Best game goes to Aaron Moman, $15, for win over Anthony Harbone  

Total Prizes $750